Where Demons Dwell
by Rae Wander
Summary: The ruler of Radiant Garden has been slowly taking over the Shade Kingdom for ten years. Captain Leon of the Highwind, with his trusty and crackpot crew, has been following orders obediently as a good captain should. Until they find two wounded shade-children in the ruins of a battle, and decide, against all orders, to save them. Eventual Soriku, Akuroku. Ensemble cast.
1. Meet The Crew

Welcome to WDD. It has been an idea growing crusty in my head for nigh on three years. Please fasten your seat belts, and don't take it too seriously. All will be revealed in time.

_Where Demons Dwell_ is a mish-mash of all the characters from Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy you could possibly think of, and then some. Please enjoy, and if you do very much, I would love to hear back from you. Cheers.

~~~

Sunrise is a welcome affair on the Highwind. It is another day survived, another morning awoken to, and a thankfulness for life. Her crew has not lost a single member at the battle of Shade Peak. Radiant troops only reported minor losses, and few survivors of the enemy forces. Captain Leonhart sends this in his daily report, ever mindful of the two comatose sleepers on his ship.

"Sir, we can't keep monsters on the ship!"

"They are children, Strife. And you do not say what can or cannot be on this ship."

A narrowing of bright blue eyes, a faint betrayal dimming them. "With all due respect, sir. They are Shadow-kin. What if they awaken and hurt someone? There is no moon tonight." _And when there is no moon, candles alight in every room. _A children's nursery rhyme, to scare youngsters into good behavior.

Captain Leonheart refrained from pinching his nose. "Don't be thick, Cloud. We have vials of the medicine for any prisoners, we can use it on them. I would not endanger any of my team. You know that. Speak frankly. What's the real problem here?"

The younger man sighed raggedly, the exhaustion showing in every line of his face. He was not the youngest of the airship's crew, by far, but at twenty, all the watchful nights and long battles were showing on his face. "I feel…anxious, sir. Apprehensive. Aerith keeps saying that the spirits are confused."

The captain frowned minutely. His squad's medic was feminine, girly, and overly fond of bows, but her rapport with the elementals was second to none. "Does she know what they say?"

Cloud shook his head, blue eyes worried. "All they keep telling her is '_Danger, danger!'_ What if they're talking about those kids?"

Closing his eyes, the captain fought internally with his honor and the threat of the two children lying unconscious in the med-bay. All his crew members seemed to have an opinion on them, from uncaring to compassionate, but Cloud was the first to out rightly protest at them being here. Kisaragi had found them, nearly bled to death among the rubble and ruin, she having thrown them on her chocobo mount and nearly flying back with the youngsters. Aerith had gotten them stabilized, and now two mornings after the fact, Leon had to deal with Cloud's prejudice.

He opened his eyes again to face Cloud's determined set jaw. "Strife, while I respect the spirits and any rapport Aerith may have with them, the battle has been over for two days. We control this quadrant, and all people of shadow-blood found from then on are not to be killed. If you have to call them prisoners to sleep at night, you do that. Until we return to the main force and…hand them over, stay away from them, and the med-bay. Understood?"

"Sir, they are the same kind of monster that destroyed my home!"

Leon's grey eyes flashed in anger then. "Enough! Whatever problem you have with them being here is irrelevant! I am the captain of this airship, and thusly they are under my protection. You will drop this subject, Mr. Strife, is that clear, or would you like a turn of stable mucking?" he finished in a low growl, summoning up a faint echo of his family's namesake.

Cloud pressed his lips together, seeming to weigh his withering options. "Aye, sir. But the general…"

"Still has no say of the happenings on my airship. Our orders were subjugation, not decimation. They are refugees, innocents. Children should not be asked to suffer the crimes of their forebearers."

The blond grit his teeth, head turned to the side. "The Turks would say differently."

A faint smile graced the captain's solemn visage. "This is why we shall keep them secreted."

A check in with the bridge that they were on course for the Aerodrome at Port Crossing, a hastily eaten meal, and then Leon was momentarily free to check-in on the two worrisome 'monsters'.

Initially they had been pale and wan, looking to slip away to death at any moment. One had dusty blonde hair, darkened with sweat, while the other had a longer mop of mud-brown, as well matted with damp. They had been bunked together, side by side, seeming to rest easier closer to one another.

"The little brunette has been talking in his sleep most of today. I haven't been able to do anything but spoonfeed them water since you brought them to me, captain. I don't have anymore intravenous solution since Yuffie got injured last season. They won't dehydrate, but if I could feed them better, they would recover a bit faster," Aerith Gainsborough, medical officer, finished her finds to the captain, setting down her now cool cup of tea.

Sipping his own drink idly, Leon marveled at its high quality before remembering his medic was a proper lady, born and bred to a noble's arts, yet had abandoned them to pursue medicine. "Does the boy speak coherently?"

"No," the young woman shook her head. "Not that I can tell. There are only a few words I catch that even sound like Midgardian. He growls quite a bit, too."

"They are Shadowkin," Leon offered, catching sight of her frown. "Don't you start as well. Cloud already tried to convince me to leave them for dead."

The gentlewoman stood up swiftly, braid slicing the air as she swung around, facing the portal window. "I would **never**!" she bit out. "Captain-Leon," she tried, turning to him, green eyes hard as emeralds. "I swore my loyalty to you, and this country. But…Cloud can rot, as far as these boys are concerned."

Her vehemence for her fellow team-member caused mirth in her captain. He set his teacup in her tiny sink, standing. "I am glad you will defend them. I can trust you to look after them well. If I get the fluids for you, will they recover fully?"

Posture softening into the caretaker she was most naturally, Aerith picked up a small notebook of neat, concise handwriting, a large section of fresh ink having been written only recently. "I do believe so. At the academy, we never received any lessons on Shadowfolk physiology. I've have to make do with all that I know of ours. They are stable, but I cannot tell you if they would wake up tomorrow or next month. The nourishment would go a long way to ensure my diagnosis..."

Understanding of how much he was asking of her came to Leon then. "You have done well, Aerith. I will get the pouches for you, and trust the spirits to do the rest."

Crossing to where her patients lay, Aerith frowned at them. "The spirits…Cloud told you they were warning me of something, didn't he?"

A nod.

She sighed, fidgeting with the tie at the end of her hair. "I told him that in confidence, but you know the old pipes on this ship. Whatever they are trying to tell me has nothing to do with these two, I'm sure of it. They sometimes don't understand our concept of time, so I cannot know if they are only now feeling the horror of the recent battle."

While Captain Leonheart pondered for a moment this information, a wild array of knocks erupted at the med-bay door, the disruptor not waiting until Aerith crossed over to allow it entrance. A wiry whirlwind rushed past Leon to quickly embrace the medic, who fondly patted her on the back before saying, "Good morning, Yuffie."

"Yo, Doc. Captain," replied the whipcord slim girl. She ironically saluted the captain, but grinned halfway through, then did it properly. "Sir."

"Kisaragi," he acknowledged. This girl was the youngest of his crew, at a mere seventeen, Yuffie Kisaragi. A child, by all sights and assumptions. Her dark hair was held back by and indigo bandana, black hair disheveled from her tornado mode of movement. Grey eyes sparkled merrily, she wearing a old jumpsuit tied at the waist, black tanktop, the shoulders fraying where she'd torn off the sleeves. She was a young apprentice spell-weaver/engineer/medic/cook/chocobo wrangler, depending on who she was assigned to on any particular week. She was currently supposed to be in the engine room, making repairs with the engineer, Cid. "Care to explain why you're here, instead of your assigned area ?

"Sir!" she exclaimed, always speaking with too much apportioned gusto, her sleeve fell back as she pointed a thumb over her shoulder, revealing her bandages. "I came to check on my boys. I also brought these for them, when they wake up." Out of her orange knapsack (and honestly, Leon understood the need for some variety among people you lived with on a tiny floating ship, but _orange? _Really? Who had allowed that color on his ship? Oh.) she pulled two wooden stars, with tiny leaves at one of the apexes. "I carved them yesterday, but Huff'n'Puff wouldn't let me take paint from storage to fix'em up." She smiled up at the adults. "D'you know what they are?"

"Paopu fruit," Leon intoned, unimpressed. "You should not address Cid as such, Kisaragi. He is your superior."

"He is also a chainsmoker, sir," she quipped back, which was also true. "But look, I carved them into puzzles, they come apart if you twist them like this, see?" She demonstrated, taking much pride in them.

"They're lovely, Yuff. Really. I'll set them right here on the table," Aerith did so, easily visible should the shadow-children open their eyes and see them.

Yuffie smiled at the sight, ruffling hair on each of them before she put her bag back on and tucked them in more securely. "I'll come see you again at noon. Tif' will send up enough chow for both of us, so don't bother getting lunch. 'Bye!" she waved brightly, saluting Leon halfheartedly before ducking out the door.

"What happens when we have to turn them over at Crossing?" Aerith asked the captain in the wake of Yuffie's exuberance.

He sighed heavily. "I'm trying not to dwell on that. They need to be dosed with the preventative for tonight. Do you have enough of the vials?"

She nodded, smiling. "Of course. I administered it before you got here. I do know what I'm doing, Leon."

"Captain," he corrected. "Were not in Academy anymore, Miss Gainsborough."

The medic rolled her eyes, reaching for her cold tea and dumping it in the sink. "So you keep reminding me. You're the one who wanted me on your crew, Captain Leonhart. Were my letters not good enough, so you needed the real thing?"

Her letters, which he keep carefully bound and in his small trunk of belongings at all times. "Your letters were perfectly adequate. I had space on my crew for a doctor. How was I to know it would be you the councilors would send?" he returned carefully, knowing full well it was a lie.

"I know that you missed me after you graduated, even if you don't say it," she murmured. "And when you're ready to tell me why you don't like being called Squall anymore, and why you didn't reply to my letters that year, I'll listen. For now, Captain, I have duties to attend to."

He left with a small bow, the door _snicking_ shut behind him. Aerith waited until she heard the heavy footfall of boots down the hallway before she sighed heavily, turning to check her patient's pulses.  
~~~


	2. The First Lesson

_Some years before a white rose finds two weeds among the rubble. _

His Majesty desired to train, and thusly was striding into the training area, sword in hand, when he came upon his youngest son. The boy was just shy of four and a half, little wooden blade in hand, parrying, slicing with no expertise.

"Riku."

The boy whipped around at the sound of his name, looking guilty before any accusation. "Father! – Your Majessie'," he stuttered through the formalities shoddily, bowing his head.

The king glanced around the practice yard, seeing little that would concern him, of all people. "You may forego the title, Riku. No one is here."

A shy smile overcame the child before he could help it, his hands still remaining behind his back. "Thank you Father."

"What do you have there?"

Pouting, the wooden practice sword was procured hesitantly, offered palm up by tiny hands as if an altar. Young Riku's eyes contained blatant worry and a hint of fear. His father's ferocity in battle was legendary, but the boy was too young yet to differentiate that between anger and battle duty.

Matching sea-green eyes raked over the scarred practice blade, then the boy's before a soft smiled played about the king's lips. "You want to become a swordsmen?"

Eagerness overcame the former emotions as only a youngster could. "Yessir! 'Daj let me borrow this, an' he told me to go hunt monsters in tha barn- but zere's no monsters, only cats I checked _all over _an'-an', am I in trouble?" the excitement ebbed as the worry crept back.

Sephiroth looked over his youngest son. Kidaj had most likely given the practice blade to the four year old knowing it might get him in trouble. His brothers, all three, hadn't begun training until their seventh years. Defense was the key, not the killing. All the elder princes excelled at combat, and drumming into their heads that war was bloody and full of bitter, unneeded death rather than glory had been a constant challenge. It did not help that their own father had won his own throne through a previous war.

He could tell, even in so young a boy, that this child of his did not contain the bloodlust that so thrilled his brothers. "Tell me why you fight, Riku. Why do you want to hold a sword?"

"So's I can fight monsters! They're real scary! Kairi dunn like'em. She cries a bunch."

Kairi. His wife's niece. A pretty girl, little older than a toddler. Riku was closest to her in age, and was resigned to be her playmate when his wife's family came to visit. Her mother's illness kept them in the capital more and more often. "You want to protect Kairi?"

The young prince frowned, lip puckering out slightly. His father smirked slightly, remembering just how young he was. "Whats 'pro-tekk?'"

How to simplify watching over a country, a family, a people, all the while watching for dangers from within a kingdom as well as without? The king considered all of this, then again on Riku's reason.

"Protect means to keep the bad things away. It means you want to keep people safe. But not just Kairi. If she is important, then so must be everyone. All of Radiant Garden is yours and mine to protect, Riku. If you want to try to become a swordsman, then you must try to protect them all. Will you try?" Sephiroth asked, kneeling down to look into his son's eyes.

His child's steady gaze made him feel a shot of pride. Riku would not only learn to fight for himself, but also for all those he might one day rule. "Yes, father. I fink-I mean," he struggled, stubborn frown now instead of a confused one. "I think so, yes."

The next day would see a proper swordsman's education begun for the youngest prince of Radiant Garden.


End file.
